Tag: Texas

Gun rights advocates are up in arms that a Texas gun dealer was sentenced to six months in prison for selling a firearm to an illegal immigrant, but a “middle-man” who bought the gun for the immigrant — and who was in the U.S. illegally himself, but had a valid driver’s license — was never arrested, charged or deported in the case.

Paul Copeland, 56, a Vietnam veteran, was sentenced to prison time and two years probation in federal court last week for selling a gun to an undocumented alien, Hipolito Aviles, at the Texas Gun Show in Austin in January.

But Aviles wasn’t the man who handed Copeland the money for the gun. That man was Leonel Huerta Sr., who presented as identification the valid Texas driver’s license he had obtained before his visa expired in 2007.

Copeland claimed he was presented with a valid driver’s license and had no way of knowing that the man he was selling the gun to was an illegal immigrant, or that he intended to give the gun to another illegal immigrant

TEL AVIV, Israel – Gov. Rick Perry compared Mexico to the Gaza Strip this week, saying Texas can learn from Israeli security efforts after touring a town that has been hit by Palestinian rockets.

Perry, who has demanded a heightened U.S. troop presence along the Rio Grande, went to Israel’s border with Gaza and was briefed by Israeli army officials.

“Kassam rockets have killed 28 Israelis over the last eight years. Well, 1,000 people have been killed in Juárez since the beginning of the year,” the governor told the Jerusalem Post in Friday’s editions, referring to the drug-related killings across the border from El Paso. “So we’re trying to find ways to secure that border, because just like it’s important to Israelis to keep heavy security on their border with Gaza, it’s important to citizens of Texas to keep out the illegal activities that are going on with drugs.”

William “Tex” Moncrief, the billionaire wildcatter and scion of one of the founding families of the Texas oil industry, is betting the key to finding new gushers is to go deeper than anyone has gone before.

Moncrief agreed in September to help finance McMoRan Exploration Co.’s $70 million Davy Jones well off the Louisiana coast in exchange for a 10 percent stake in the prospect. The gamble paid off last week, when New Orleans-based McMoRan said the well hit what may be one of the biggest Gulf of Mexico oil and gas discoveries in decades.